A guide to unsupervised image segmentation of mCT-scanned cellular metals with mixture modelling and Markov random fields

Panić, Branislav (author), Borovinšek, Matej (author), Vesenjak, Matej (author), Oman, Simon (author), Nagode, Marko (author)

Characterising the structure of cellular metals is a difficult task. The internal structure of cellular metals can be determined using micro-computed tomography (mCT). However, mCT scanning provides digital images in greyscale with various problematic artefacts. In addition, the grey intensity of cellular metals usually varies greatly due to the internal porosity of the material. Therefore, binary image segmentation to extract material segments from digital images is quite difficult. Our contribution can be summarised as follows. A comprehensive evaluation of various mixture models that have been shown in the literature to be useful for tomography, but for the purpose of binary image segmentation of cellular metals and internal porosity assessment. We propose a novel merging technique to merge different components of the mixture model for the purpose of binary image segmentation of cellular metals. Finally, to enforce spatial regularisation and further improve the binary image segmentation, we combine the obtained two-segment mixture model (material-void mixture model) with Markov random fields and evaluate the effects of different strengths of spatial regularisation. Our proposals are thoroughly investigated using five different types of cellular metals. The reported results are promising and competitive and speak in favour of the relevance of our proposals.

• Language: English
• Keywords: mixture model, spatial regularisation, Markov random fields, cellular metals, porosity
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 13 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 239, art. 112750
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-154730
• UDC: 620.1
• ISSN on article: 1873-4197
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2024.112750
• COBISS.SI-ID: 186796035
• Publication date in RUL: 26.02.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Materials & design
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• ISSN: 1873-4197
• COBISS.SI-ID: 56288771

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: mešani model, prostorska regularizacija, Markova naključna polja, celične strukture, poroznost

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P2-0182
• Name: Razvojna vrednotenja

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P2-0063
• Name: Konstruiranje celičnih struktur